A Borrowed Identity

A Borrowed Identity

To quote Oscar Wilde, the Jews and Palestinians are two peoples separated by a common culture. This is the central theme in A Borrowed Identity, a powerful drama about an Arab youth who has reasons for pretending to be Jewish.

And if this film represents a blending of cultures, it’s also due to its source. Directed by Eran Riklis (“The Human Resources Manager,” “The Syrian Bride”), one of Israel’s top filmmakers, and written by acclaimed Arab-Israeli author Seyad Kashua (“Dancing Arabs,” “Let It Be Morning”), based on his own autobiographical fictions.

It starts out in an Arab village in the 1980s. Young Eyad (Razi Gabareen) watches Israeli jets on TV news attacking Lebanon with his family. Politics and war are much on everyone’s minds but so are family ties. Eyad is especially close to his grandmother (Marlene Barjali), who advises him concerning her burial, which she hopes is far in the future.

His father (Ali Suliman), a controversial working man who sees his son as his ticket to a better life, inspires him as well. Many scenes at school are funny, such as when a Jewish American peace activist comes into the class and says he wants to build bridges between their culture and Jewish culture and the Israeli translator tells them what he said was that they’ll always be nothing but farmers and laborers. But school is also serious business for Eyad; being the smartest student there offers him his best chance of making something more of himself.

When Act II begins it’s now the early ’90s, and teenager Eyad (now Tawfeek Barhom) arrives at one of Jerusalem’s most prestigious boarding schools intent on succeeding academically at any cost. He seems to be the only Arab student; his Jewish classmates look at him with mingled curiosity and guardedness.

Naomi (Danielle Kitsis), a beautiful fellow student, adds to the new life’s joys and complications. Her attraction to Eyad quickly deepens into love but is ultimately imperiled by various obstacles that include her Jewishness. Thanks to the performances of the actors involved, the film’s depiction of young romance is remarkably subtle and believable.

Eyad forms an important extracurricular friendship with Yonatan (Michael Moshonov), a young man stricken with muscular dystrophy who never leaves his home. At first reaching out to him is merely an assignment for schoolwork until they discover a shared passion for music. Eyad is equally affected by Yonatan’s relationship with his mother, Edna (Yael Abeccassis).

Eventually his father is furious when scholarly pursuits are abandoned and hard work becomes necessary. But for Arabs employment and even having a bank account can be difficult so he chooses one: Yonatan’s identity itself, since he needs an Israeli one. If entering a Jewish academy was at that stage in his life like jumping off into an entirely different world, taking on a Jewish identity is even more so.

In “A Borrowed Identity,” there is no polemic; all the same, it presents a complex picture of this boy’s life as he goes through various stages against a backdrop of shifting cultural identities reflecting wider collective crises. The historical setting is evocative and well crafted.

However, it isn’t without its faults. Eyad needed to have stronger relationships with his Jewish male peers at school. Naomi’s relationship should have had a more satisfying ending but instead it gets lost in all that new-Yonatan stuff. Still, given that it may be among the most accessible and polished Israeli films produced recently, “A Borrowed Life” deserves attention from anyone interested in its borderlines with other cultures or themes raised by them.

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